A Warmer Winter
by QuirkyChameleon
Summary: A wintry little one-shot that just fell into my head. Post-Mockingjay.


The winter is particularly biting this year.

Peeta feels movement at the other end of the bed and he watches Katniss wince in pain as she raises herself up, her muscles that must still be very sore visibly causing her pain to get to their crying son, who lies in the tiny crib a few feet away from the bed. He is occupied at the moment with their five-year-old daughter, who has come up to their room in the wee hours of the morning to snuggle with her mama and daddy, because they're warm. She snuggles into her half-awake father, still sleeping. They have heaped on another layer of blankets, which is a lot even with all of the blankets for Katniss and for the baby. Peeta has been careful not to take up too much room on their bed, though, because Katniss and the baby need it more than he does.

"Stay there, Katniss," he tells her suddenly, standing. "I'll get him."

A flash of gratitude flickers over her otherwise pained expression. She nods, and sinks back onto the mountain of pillows behind her, still left from three days before.

His own bones creak as he gently shifts his small daughter away from him and gets up, but he knows it is a far cry from how Katniss must feel.

Their daughter had not been quite so difficult at her birth; she had come quickly. He remembers just how fast. One moment Katniss had been kneeling on the floor, her face buried in the bed covers and her hand clutching his, letting out a loud, long moan of pain. He and the midwife had barely gotten Katniss onto the bed before they could see the head of the baby beginning to emerge. Their daughter was born in less than a few minutes. He remembers the "what just happened?" feeling that he and Katniss were both experiencing right then. He remembers Katniss sobbing for joy. He remembers doing the same.

With their son, it had seemed that he would never come out. Katniss had strained for a very long time before begging the midwife to let her rest. So Katniss and the unborn baby rested for a few minutes before she strained for another hour and made minimal progress. The reason, as Katniss' yells of pain would soon let them know, was that he was coming out feet first with an arm up by his face. The nurse nearly had the baby cut out of Katniss before he finally came all the way out, squalling angrily at what he and his mother had both just endured. Katniss was too weak to raise her head, so Peeta had gently lifted up her head so she could look at their son. She cried then too as she reached for the baby with shaking hands and wrapped her arms around him.

Peeta peers over his new son's crib; the baby's small face is wrinkled up and his toothless mouth is open in a cry that is increasing steadily in volume as it is not taken care of. His hands know how to handle a baby, he did this with their daughter, yet the sense of newness still washes over him as he slips a hand under their son's head and gently lifts him from the crib, cradling him in one arm. The baby is kicking his feet and clasping his hands into small fists, still crying, as Peeta brings him over to Katniss.

"I think he might be hungry."

Katniss only nods as she takes the baby into her arms, wincing slightly as she tries to get comfortable on her pillows. He slides a pillow under her arm that cradles their son and adjusts a few more against her back so she can sit up properly. He takes one of the blankets and wraps it around her bare shoulders, tucking it under her arm and lifting a corner of it over the baby so that he will be warm as well. Katniss unbuttons her nightgown and their son's cries quiet as he begins to feed. Both parents sigh in relief; there will soon be times where they do not know what their son wants, and they will be stuck with a crying baby on their hands. But for now, he is calmed as he eats, his blue eyes that are beginning to look gray (most likely he will have his mother's eyes) occasionally flitting up at his exhausted mother, who gazes down at him, curling her finger to rub the back of it against his cheek.

Peeta smiles. He plants a kiss on his son's and then his wife's head before taking his place back on the bed, next to their still snoozing daughter.

* * *

He wakes when his daughter does, sometime mid-afternoon. Snow is beginning to fall outside and it feels chillier than ever. Peeta looks over to see Katniss lying asleep on her pillows, her hands on the baby's back as he snoozes on her chest, a fistful of his mother's hair in his grasp.

The young girl is sitting up, rubbing her eyes. She smiles brightly at the snow outside and flops herself on her dad's chest. He gives a slight "oof!" and she giggles.

"Daddy," she begins loudly, but he hushes her immediately.

"Shush. Mama and your brother are sleeping."

She quiets, her eyes still glittering with excitement.

"Can we play in the snow?" she whispers.

Peeta sighs. He doesn't want to leave Katniss alone with the baby in case she needs him, but they have to do something with their daughter.

"Give Daddy a few minutes to wake up, pumpkin. Go in your room and wait for me, okay?"

She scampers gleefully to her bedroom. Peeta follows much more slowly, his feet slowly coming to rest on the floor, his artificial leg creaking a little, getting used to movement. He is careful not to wake Katniss or the baby. He gazes at them for a few moments, fills his eyes with the two sleeping so peacefully before he gets up and goes to his daughter's room, yawning.

Peeta bundles her up warmly in her coat and puts on her boots. He slips mittens over her small hands and wraps a scarf around her neck. It takes him a small bit of time trying to get a hat over her dark, wavy hair, only because she is so fidgety to get outside.

"Keep still, peanut. We'll go out as soon as I can get this on."

He finishes dressing her and she flounces down the stairs, bouncing around excitedly as Peeta gets on his own coat, scarf, and gloves.

"Come on, Daddy!" She squeals.

"Okay, okay," he says, chuckling a little. He opens the door and follows his daughter outside.

The air is understandably chilly but it is not windy. There is a blanket of tranquility and silence in the near perfect covering of snow, untouched by anything. The only sounds that even would resemble disturbance are the happy squeals of his daughter as she trudges through the snow.

"Look at me, Daddy!" she yells joyfully, scooping up handfuls of snow in her arms.

"I see you!" he calls back, grinning at her.

They trek over a hill and Peeta continues to watch his daughter, his exhaustion slightly dulling the usual energy he would have had out here with her.

She heads straight for the frozen lake. "Daddy, I want to walk on the ice!"

His heart jumps into his throat.

"No!" he cries. He starts to hobble faster, desperately trying to reach his daughter and keep the worst from happening. She has just started walking on the ice when it breaks from under her. By some miracle she is close enough to shore for Peeta to get to her. Her head nearly disappears under the dark water completely before Peeta grabs his daughter and hoists her up from the water. Her cheerful naïvety has completely disappeared, to be replaced with a dripping, shivering, coughing and crying five-year-old. Peeta rips off his jacket and wraps it around her, holding his daughter close, trying to warm her back up. She buries her face in his shirt and wails, clearly shaken up.

"Hey, now, you're okay," says Peeta, to remind himself more than her. He is seriously considering keeping this from Katniss; that is the last thing she needs to hear about right now. "You're okay, baby, you're okay. I got you. Daddy's got you."

He is angry, at himself and at her for scaring him so, but for right now, he is protective, sweet Daddy.

His daughter is shivering violently and still wailing, though with his comforting words her crying has died down to whimpering. Peeta knows he must get her home as soon as possible; heaven help them if he and Katniss had a newborn and a sick child on their hands.

They make it inside the house and Peeta gets his daughter up the stairs and out of her clothes without much trouble. He dresses her in warm, thick clothing, murmurs comforting words amid her occasional whimpers. After she is dressed he lifts her up into his arms and shuffles back down the stairs with her. He sets her down on the sofa, starts a fire in their fireplace, takes yet another blanket from the closet near the stairs, and wraps his daughter up in it.

"You listen to me right now, young lady," he says sternly, and she raises slightly frightened eyes up to him. "Don't you ever run out on the ice again. Do you understand me?"

She nods, her blue eyes filling with tears.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Yes, but only because I love you," says Peeta, putting both hands on her cheeks and wiping her tears away. "I'm mad because you scared me. I thought I was going to lose you. But I forgive you."

He presses his lips to her forehead once, twice.

"Now you stay right here and get warm. I have to go check on Mama and your brother."

His daughter nods again, lying down on the sofa and cuddling further into her blanket.

He makes his way up the stairs, sighing heavily. He stops short at the top, however, because he hears a soft and tender song coming from their bedroom.

He enters very quietly to find Katniss awake and out of bed; she has the baby in her arms and is rocking him in the rocking chair he relocated to their room a day or two before she gave birth. Katniss is still cocooned in blankets, but judging by the reminiscent path some are still taking on the floor, she must have dragged them from the bed while carrying the baby. A pillow sits under her arm so it is easier to cradle the child, and she is gazing down at him, singing a lullaby that is slowly but surely calming his occasional whimpering. After a moment or two, Katniss lifts the baby back up to her chest, a hand behind his head to support it, the other arm holding him up. She continues to sing, her thumb running gently up and down her son's head, smiling a little when he starts to fall asleep. Peeta watches, a little transfixed by the pure beauty of the scene before him.

She notices him a few minutes later. Her song done, she nods him over to her.

He approaches as if stepping through a pure veil that he does not want to shatter. Ever so gently and quietly he kneels down next to the rocking chair and smiles at their son, whose eyelids are drooping.

"You seem to be feeling better," Peeta almost whispers.

"I'm not quite so sore now after some sleep," Katniss replies just as quietly. "Where is our daughter?"

"Downstairs on the sofa. She and I went for a little walk and she thought it would be a great idea to walk on the frozen lake."

Katniss stiffens, stops rocking.

"It's okay," he adds quickly, for he can already see anxiety beginning to overtake her gaze. "I got to her before she was even a small distance from the shore. She was only underwater for a few seconds at the most. I changed her clothes and wrapped her up in a blanket in front of the fire."

"Is she okay?"

"A little shaken still, but yeah, she's fine."

The baby begins to stir a little and Katniss begins to rock again, patting his small back. "Shh, it's okay," she says quietly to him before looking back up at Peeta.

"I would like to go downstairs, I think," she says quite seriously. "I don't really know if I can make the trip with me and the baby, but maybe we can make two trips."

They decide to get Katniss downstairs first, then Peeta will come back up to get the baby.

It is a slow process, getting Katniss out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She leans heavily on Peeta for every step, so much so that he wonders how she managed to get a few feet across their bedroom. Keeping a firm arm around her, Peeta helps Katniss down the stairs and to the sofa, where he helps her sit down and re-wraps the blankets around her. Their daughter cuddles up next to Katniss, who gives a good-natured sigh and strokes her daughter's slightly damp hair.

"You little troublemaker," she says gently, a small grin on her face.

Peeta gently lifts the baby from his small crib for the second time that day and carries him down the stairs too, with just about as much speed as he did with Katniss. In a few minutes, all four Mellarks are bundled up in blankets on their sofa in front of the fireplace. Their little girl is cuddled against her mother, asleep, and her father holds her baby brother, who is also dozing.

The parents look at their sleeping children, then at each other.

Peeta kisses her. She returns it.

When they break apart, Katniss turns her gaze to the flickering orange flames before looking back down at her children, her babies whom, in another life, she had never thought would exist.

Katniss takes Peeta's hand in hers.

"Thank you," she says softly.

He gives a squeeze.

Winter feels a little warmer.


End file.
